Chronicles of the Sith
by NeonZangetsu
Summary: She infuriates him. Angers him. He should not feel this way about her being; he should not care for her safety. He should not, and yet, he cannot bring himself to ignore this strange, little girl. Naruko is her name and he isn't sure whether he wants to love her or kill her. Catapaulted across time and space, a sith struggles to contemplate his new destiny AU. AnakinxNaruko. Harem?


**A/N: Well now! I've been away for quite awhile, haven't I? I've been so busy playing SWTOR that I've forgotten to write in general. I've managed to tear myself away from it for the time being to do what I love so very much; to write, of course. And with that...**

**...enjoy the story!**

_"I do not understand you, boy. How can you not hate them for what they have done to you?"_

_~Darth Vader._

**Prologue**

Darth Vader, former jedi knight and dark lord of the sith, opened his eyes and forced them to _stay_ open. He sucked in a swift breath through his teeth, hissing at the sight that greeted him there. It had nothing to do with his surroundings; the sparsely furnished apartment in which he found himself did little but stoke his ire. It was his face. His fingers curled round the edge of the bed with enough force to draw blood, and still, he did not relent.

It took every bit of Anakin's concentration and a supreme effort of will not to cry out; not to let his anger-simmering just beneath the surface-subsume him, lest he erupt into full-blooded rage yet again. Because he was staring into the face of madness itself; the face of a child-killer and comrade slayer. A murderer. The shame of it twisted like a his gut, coiling round and round in a tight knot of heat and wrath in his chest.

_What have I done?_

A simple question, yet infinite in its complexity.

Once more, he returned gaze toward the single pane of glass occupying the opposite end of the room. Once more, he forced himself to look upon the visage of the man-the monster-he had become. There was no mask to greet his burning gaze; such a transformation had been affected within, not without. The abomination he'd become existed only beneath his skin, nothing more, nothing less. He pushed a hand through his hair, the brown tresses were still there; the vision of the black monolith of a man was just that; a vision, a future that could've been, _would've been,_ had he fallen into the flames of Mustafar. But Lord Vader had not fallen, and thus he was left to face his flaws. But abomination though he was, he need no longer face it alone.

_What have I done?_

Another such abomination slumbered in the next room over, sleeping peacefully though not by choice. She was innocent and yet guilty; blessed, but cursed with a power remarkably similair to his own. He could feel the _Force_ in her, alongside the sick, twisted prescence of another. It was almost as if she housed another concsiousness within her own and the thought intrigued him at the time...

...perhaps that was why he'd let her live.

Vader _almost_ squirmed at the thought of what he'd done earlier-he was no stranger to murder but he'd taken a certain sick _pleasure_ in hacking and slicing off the limbs off his tormentors before ending their feeble little lives. He wasn't entirely sure _what_ it was, that had set him off to begin with, only that he was standing aside one moment then wading headlong into the crowd the next, sabre swinging to and fro like a thing possessed.

Perhaps the girl reminded him of his former life; weak, powerless, impotent. Perhaps, because he sensed the power in her. A power worth training. Perhaps it was on a whim; a flight of fancy, to distract him from the crushing depression swallowing up his life, haunting his every waking moment since he first found himself stranded on this forsaken, primitive world. They knew next to nothing of Jedi and Sith, the Republic-turned-empire, starships, even the concept of the Holonet, and credits were all but lost on them. They called themselves shinobi.

_What have I done?_

Regardless and for whatever reason, he'd saved the child. His actions would leave an indellible mark upon her future, yet he regretted none of it. Had he allowed the girl's oppressors to continue their little 'game' any longer than they already had, he would've risked her death, or worse. That she'd nicknamed him 'Onii-chan' for his effort did precious little to lessen the sting of his losses.

She was strange, this girl, Vader mused. _Naruko_ was her name and she'd been all but in awe of him ever since he'd plucked her away from her tormentors. As if that hadn't been enough, she'd resolutely decided to follow him after that. Wherever he went. In other words...everywhere.

Vader, less than pleased by his newest carry-on, tried to nudge her away with a simple mind trick. That had been a mistake, and a painful one at that. Stepping into her mind, was akin to stepping into a lake of fire; he'd recoiled before he could even think to supplant her thoughts. Influencing her was simply not an option; the core of Anakin Skywalker that still resided deep within him_-despite his best efforts to stamp it out-_refused to face such pain again. It was infuriating. Skywalker was weak. It should've been easy to rid himself of him yet the remnants of his old life _of his emotions_ clung to him like a stubborn mynock on a power coupling.

Just like this strange little girl. He couldn't bring himself to scrape her off.

Her maurity was astounding. She didn't seem to mind_-or care!-_that he'd butchered a entire mob before her very eyes. Once, as Anakin, Vader would've quailed at the thought of taking lives. As Darth Vader, he held no such misconception. Just as he knew most would flee from fear_-several of the villagers already had-_upon witnessing such a sight. Naruko? The lass, merely murmurred that and he quoted: "those assholes had it coming" before resuming her sunny disposition.

In the end, he'd had no choice but to usher the child to bed; to prevent her from asking too many prying questions. It had been surprisingly difficult. One did not so easily explain the concept of a Lightsaber, to a lass of ten years old, and why she most certainly could _not_ buy one somewhere.

_What have I done?_

The doubt still gnawed at him with relentess tenacity, questioning all he'd done. Condemning him. Ironic, that he should feel guilt now, when it was all said and done. Operation Knightfall and Order Sixty-Six had seen the deaths, of hundreds-perhaps thousands-of jedi across the known galaxy and not once had he felt so much as a twinge of guilt for any of them. They were his comrades, friends, allies, and he hadn't shed a single tear as he cut them down.

Now, his thoughts were with the blue-eyed blond, and why the _flack_ he'd bothered to save her in the first place. Something in him-another irksome vestige of Anakin most likely-prevented him for simply casting her aside as he'd cast all else. All the trappings of his old life were gone; his friends, his place in the jedi order, even the only man he'd dared call brother.

His narrow triumph over his former master on Mustafar had been brutal and bittersweet, overshadowed by the passing of his wife. Of Padme. Oh, Padme...

He'd returned to the landing platform to find her ship gone, and her unconcsious form with it. At first he'd thought she'd fled from him; the thoughts had been unbearable. Why had she left him? Where had he gone wrong? Couldn't she see he'd done this _for_ her? Had she betrayed him, too?

It was not until some time later that he finally felt her prescence fade into the Force; ceasing to exist even as he desperately scoured the galaxy for her. he could only assume their child had suffered such a fate

In the end, he'd lost them all. Everything. He cursed the Force for it. Dangling salvation before him, promising peace, only to snatch both away at the last instant. The Force had stolen everything from him. Its first victim had been his Qui-Gon Jinn, an immovable pivot of a man, a man who surely hadn't seen this coming when he'd first plucked him from Tatooine, those years ago. It seemed such a short time ago, and yet, decades had passed. He'd grown stronger, lost much, gained precious little in the way of friends and family. But he'd been content; Obi-Wan was a fine master, if a tad stern, and

Then fate thrust Padme in his lap again and everything started to fall apart. Not all at once, mind you, just slowly enough for a jedi padawan to be caught unawares, to wonder how it was that he found himself hopelessly, helplessly, in love with a love that he should not-could not-feel, and yet one that burned brighter than the stars themselves. And then the Force conspired to rip them apart.

Just as it had with his mother. He'd failed to heed his visions in time and she'd paid the price for his temerity. When it came for Padme, he was determined to prevent it. At any cost. He would not realize just what that cost entailed until he cut down Master Windu, finalizing his betrayal in the eyes of the jedi and his descent into darkness. From that moment he swore he'd do whatever it took to save her; even if it meant staining his hand with the blood of younglings. With the blood of perhaps a man he thought of as both father and friend.

Obi-Wan, dead by his own hands, skewered by his former apprentice as he leapt from the platform, soared over the master's blazing blade and thrust his own between the jedi's chest.

Padme. In the end, despite all he'd done, he'd lost her after all. Sidious had promised him a way to save her, but that was all a lie, wasn't it? Peace was a lie. There was only passion. And in his passion_-in his fury-_the apprentice plotted his revenge. He returned to Sidious and masked his emotions, waited until their shuttled took to hyperspace, and then, then he turned on his master with all the fury of a grieving husband and a heartrbroken sith.

But Palpatine was not the feeble old man he'd thought him to be. He was stronger than him, not so much as to dominate the battle, just enough to prevent Vader from killing him outright. They raged across the vessel like sith lords of old, uncaring as they tore bulkheads from their rivets and flung tendrils of lightning at one another. To the victor would go the Empire; to the loser, only death awaited.

Their battle plunged them into the very depths of the ship itself, leaving them warring dangerously close to the hyperdrive. It may have been his master's plan that their battle end there, or it might've been an accident altogether that first caused their catastrophic slip from hyperspace. Whatever it was, there was little point in dwelling upon it now.

At the climax of their duel, in a last, desperate act of fury and defiance, the deformed sith lord struck the hyperdrive, ending their clandestine fight; hurtling both master and apprentice across time and space and reality. When Vader woke he was not in the shuttle, he lay outside its charred husk, covered in dust and soot, but very much alive.

And stranded on this force forsaken planet.

Just the memory of it, of waking and not knowing where he was-where Sidious had gone-was enough to drive Vader back to a frenzied state of madness. Was his master alive or dead? Were the sith destined to end here, to perish on this primitive as dirt mudball.

There was no way off this planet. Vader knew this. And yet still he sought an escape with every fiber of his being.

At that moment he wanted nothing more than to let them slide shut, to return unto his dreams and yet he willed them be open, demanded that they meet the unflinching gaze-reflection-of the man in the mirror, staring back at him in accusation. They were his eyes-undoubtedly his-yet he did not recognize them. No longer were they his true blue yet neither were they sith, hof himself, red, tainted, yellow irises of the monster he had become. They were a strange, eerie mix of the two, crass and cruel, saffron and sapphire, bordering on emerald. He knew not the meaning of this, and quite frankly, didn't care.

He knew not how he had come here, to this place. Only that he was here, and he could not sense his former master. Vader bit back a growl at the thought; if Sidious yet lived, he would not let him escape. Certainly not train another apprentice! As he contemplated the thought a pang soft whimper reached his ears.

Naruko.

Vader drew himself up from the bed, brushed a hand across his leathers, crossed the room in swift strides. In the span of a single beat he stood at the girl's bedside. He glowered down at her, this little whiskered wenched who captivated him so. It was exasperating. She whimpered again, her small form tossing and turning in the sheets. She was having a nightmare, he realized. Anakin's first instinct was to comfort her, and it sickened Vader to the very core of his being.

I should kill her.

The Force raged within Vader, no longer the calm sky he once knew but a stormy ocean, roiling and boiling in his gut. He should kill this girl. He reached for the hilt at his waist and, with the press of a button, activated it. The lightsaber sprang forth like a genine from the bottle, thunder in a tube, light in its purest form. Anakin_-Vader!-_cradled it a moment longer, testing the weight of his weapon, contemplating.

A single cut would end it; bringing the child's life to a swift and abrupt end. It would be a mercy to kill her, to spare this one the pain that was sure to follow with the morning. Or was he just being selfish? For the first time since beoming sith, Anakin surface, protesting once more. No, he must not kill this girl! He musn't! Vader growled, tried to subdue his conscience.

_Failed._

He wrestled with the thought a moment longer before deactivating the blade; its blazing blue brilliance shrinking back into the hilt which he then buckled to his belt. He turned away from her, an errant thought pulling the sheets closer about hers and her, easing her whimpers. The nightmare was over.

She would live to see the next sunrise. Beyond that...

...he promised nothing.

**A/N: Anakin may have triumphed, but he's a broken man over what he's done. I don't often write stories about Naruko instead of Naruto, but I felt that Anakin-VADER!-would tend to be more merciful to a girl than he would a boy. That, and the hellacious antics she's bound to cause him. We'll see things from her point of view next chappy!**

**And of course, in the ever immortal words of Darth Vader...**

**...Review! It is your destiny!**

**R&R! =D**


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